


muscle memory of the mind

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 02:49:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13627014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: After their jailbreak and before their truce runs out, Oswald and Ed get a somewhat contentious drink.





	muscle memory of the mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ceruleanVulpine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceruleanVulpine/gifts).



> it's all blue's fault and i take no responsibility. thanks. (she also wrote a fic with the same premise because we're dorks [check it out it's great](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13626900).)

“Really, Ed,” Oswald says morosely into his sleeve. Ed has pointed out, at length, the likely bacterial content of the bar of this particularly sordid establishment, where Oswald’s head is resting. Oswald, his pride having apparently won out against his fastidiousness, has continued to ignore him. He has one hand curled around his nearly empty wineglass, tapping out a meandering rhythm that Ed refuses to recognize. “None of this was necessary. If you had just spoken with me--”

“Ah, yes,” Ed says. He leans his head on one hand and favors Oswald with his new favorite smile, the one that is just wide enough to unsettle. “If only I had spoken with you reasonably about the fact that you _murdered the love of my life_ , this all would have turned out differently.”

“Yes,” Oswald says, slowly. “I’m glad we agree.” 

“It’s for the best, really,” Ed says. “If I hadn’t killed you--”

“You didn’t.”

“If It hadn’t _shot_ you, I never would have become who I was truly meant to be,” Ed finishes. 

Oswald sits up, shaking his head perhaps more vigorously than he intends. “We were going to be _kings_ ,” he says. He’s always been very good at saying the most ridiculous things with a straight face. “We did great things together, didn’t we? We would have ruled Gotham. Together.”

“Yes, I’m sure it would have been lovely. You making all the decisions and killing every nice girl that I met. But don’t you see, Oswald? It’s better this way. Now I know that I don’t need you.” Oswald laughs. Ed can see a spot of blood that he didn’t manage to wipe off lingering under his chin when he tips his head back. 

Ed ignores him, and takes another drink. “After I shot you, and then after I made you leave, everything has been so much clearer--”

“What do you mean, made me leave?” 

“Nothing,” Ed says. He wonders what the dripping wet phantom of Oswald would have to say right now. He’d probably be picking away at the bar peanuts. “I linger in mirrors, but no longer have the breath to fog them,” Ed says. “I reside in your heart, while my own has ceased to beat. Who am I?”

“Lacking a bit of your usual style, isn’t it? And what do mirrors have to do with anything?”

“Well, if it’s too difficult for you--”

“Edward,” Oswald says, with the measured equanimity of the very drunk. He leans in close, and stage-whispers: “Ghosts aren’t real.” 

There are pros and cons to Ed hooking his foot through the crossbar of Oswald’s barstool and yanking it off balance. Cons: Oswald might take it as a violation of their truce, which by the dull red blinking of the clock on the bar’s wall, has an hour and forty seven minutes left in its duration. It’s not exactly the sort of dignified act befitting the Riddler. And it goes against all of the instincts that Ed had cultivated during his time as Oswald’s chief of staff--the muscle memory of the mind that had almost led him to suggest that they sit down at a booth, when they first walked in, thinking of the barstools and Oswald’s back. He’d reigned the impulse in, but here it is again. 

Pros: it would be very, very funny. 

But this late and this sleep deprived and this drunk, instinct wins out, and Ed can’t bring himself to do it. “Reality is subjective,” he says. “And even in death, you wouldn’t leave me alone to spread my wings. Fitting, wouldn’t you say?”

“Don’t you think that, just perhaps, any lingering fascination has more to do with you than with me?”

Ed thinks of the pills he’d been taking. How lonely the hours between each one had seemed. He doesn’t answer.

“When we first met, Edward,” Oswald says, “you practically begged me to teach you.”

“I don’t need a teacher anymore,” Ed spits. He leans in close, until he gets what he wants: Oswald flinching back. “And my _name_ is the Riddler. That’s who I am now.”

"You think the Riddler is who you are?" Penguin sneers. "What has the Riddler done, exactly? A few petty murders before getting locked in a cage because you just couldn't help but be _curious_? The Riddler is no one. He's not the man Miss Kringle fell in love with, or Isabelle, or--" He pauses and regroups. "And anyway, what shade of green do you call that suit you were wearing on TV?"

"When you get someone to fix your hair, then you can start giving me fashion advice, Oswald." Ed sighs. He looks up at the clock. An hour and forty one minutes. _I fly but can’t be caught._

“Don’t you ever miss it?” Oswald says. Ed looks up sharply. Oswald’s glass is empty, and he’s grown suddenly morose again. Ed remembers this, too. A glass or two or three of wine after dinner always did have an unpredictable effect on Oswald’s mood. 

“I miss a lot of things, Oswald.” He misses Miss Kringle, and Isabella, and yes, even Oswald. The conviction that he’d felt when he had honestly said he would do anything for him. “But dwelling on the past has never brought me any joy. Consider it free advice.” He gets up, only a touch unsteady on his feet. He licks his thumb and wipes away the spot of blood still on Oswald’s chin, another old instinct coming back to bite him. Oswald only blinks at him. Either too stupid or too trusting, to let Ed’s hands this close to his throat, even with a truce between them.

Of course, Oswald has always been both of those things. And maybe it’s not that at all. Ed, after all, knows better than anyone how long love can linger. Kris’s pulse had felt just like this under his fingers: frenetic and alive, until the moment Ed crushed it.

There’s no knife in Ed’s back as he leaves. It’s odd that he ever thought Oswald had anything to teach him at all. 

Ed smiles to himself. The sun is rising in Gotham. He’s free, and he stuck disgraced Mayor Cobblepot with the check. 

He needed someone to oppose him, someone who would sit up and _listen_. And here Oswald is, back from the dead, promising to kill him another day. Things are looking up.


End file.
